Celebrity Skin
by my calico
Summary: Six years after graduation, Beck and Jade are once again Beck-and-Jade, and have to learn the hard way the trade-offs between publicity and a relationship that has almost always hung in the balance.
1. Chapter 1

_ Slow down now, the secret's out  
__And I swear now I can make this perfect  
__What you want, what you need has been killing me  
__Trying to be everything that you want me to be  
__I'll say yes, I'll undress, I've done more for less and  
__I will change everything 'til it's perfect again_

_**Perfect by Marianas Trench**_

* * *

Trina Vega flashed a brilliant, albeit slightly forced, smile at the camera just as her director called to start filming. "Good evening America! I've got an amazing episode of _Trina! _lined up for you today – later we've got Ryan Gosling on the show, but before that, we have Hollywood's most talked about new couple: Beck Oliver and Jade West!" The camera panned out from Trina's face to side-stage, from where Beck and Jade appeared, greeted by the cheers and applause of her studio audience. Jade walked ahead of Beck, her hand entwined in his as he followed and waved to the crowd. Trina took the opportunity that the camera was _not _focused on her to make a face at Jade, whose lip twitched in wry amusement but otherwise revealed no sign of her irritation.

"Some things never change"was the theme of the evening, it seemed.

Trina sat down on her chair just as the couple took a seat on the couch across from her. She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she gestured to them. "So let me just say, wow – I can't _believe _you two are together again!" The look on her face certainly was disbelief, mingled with something else. She hoped the camera was far enough away from her to not catch it, because it really wouldn't look good for her reputation. She paused to look at her audience and explain, "For those of you who didn't know, these two went out in high school, and here they are again six years later. Funny, huh?"

It _was _a little funny, even to Beck, who barely agreed with Trina on anything. Six years after graduation, here they were, a tangle of limbs on Trina's couch. His arm wrapped tightly around Jade's waist, and her hand was on his knee, and they looked perfectly happy with the arrangement – although Beck had to admit that he was betting on Jade blowing up on Trina before the interview was over. He could practically hear her counting one to ten under her breath like her anger management counsellor advised her to do.

"Yeah, working on our new movie together really reminded us how great things used to be between us," Beck volunteered helpfully. His grip on Jade's waist tightened just a little, reminding her to keep smiling as long as the camera was rolling. Really, tolerating Trina was not that difficult. They were all mature adults now, after all.

Trina smiled brightly at Beck. "That's so sweet of you to say," she gushed.

Jade managed to smile as she said, "Isn't it? Beck's the sweetest boyfriend _ever." _ Her own grip on his knee tightened a little as well, and he took that as a sign to stop with the little helpful hints for the rest of the interview.

Their host seemed disinterested as she deadpanned, "Is that so." She turned her attention to Beck again as she said, "So, about your new movie – _The Perfect Mistake. _Tell us about it."

"It's set in post-apocalyptic America. Basically two survivors find each other and try to keep each other going even after all they've lost," he said, summing up the movie in two lines, hoping to get the interview over and done with, because he could see that his girlfriendwas almost at her breaking point. Hastily, he added, "We're both really excited for it. We're only about two months into filming so there isn't much to talk about yet, but we're hoping it'll be ready for release early next year."

Trina gave him a nod, a mischievous smile spreading across her face. He felt sick to his stomach. He didn't like where this was going. Turning to Jade, she asked, "So Jade, what's it like dating one of Hollywood's most sought-after bachelors?" As she was about to respond, Trina added, "I mean –" She flipped her hair for dramatic effect and continued, "There are so _many beautiful and talented women in Hollywood, _you have –" and she flipped her hair again, "_So much competition."_

Some things never change, indeed.

Beck cast a nervous glance to the director, who was obviously just as worried about it and had been cueing Trina to stop talking from the start of the question. But Trina was dead set on getting a reaction from Jade, who was sitting calmly across from her. Somehow, she managed a wide, seemingly genuine smile as she replied confidently, "Oh, Trina, the beautiful and talented women of Hollywood are certainly welcome to try."

He gave her a sidelong glance, the smile on his face completely unrehearsed. Even ten years after they first met, she still managed to surprise him.

Trina's director motioned frantically for her to end, and, unable to think up a comeback to Jade's veiled threat, stood up and said, "Beck Oliver and Jade West, everybody! Stick around, we'll have Ryan Gosling in the hot seat." The director gave an obvious sigh of relief as he instructed the cameraman to pan the focus out to the audience.

Safely out of view of those cameras, Jade leaned in until Beck could feel her warm breath in his ear. He struggled to keep the shiver at bay. "Babe," she whispered, bemused, "I think your hand's someplace it shouldn't be."

He raised an eyebrow at her as he whispered back, "I'm dating you, and not another _beautiful and talented woman of Hollywood, _so I think it's right where it should be." Okay, his hand _was _a little low on her waist to be normal for Trina's PG-13 audience, but…

Speaking of Trina, the woman had rounded on them now and all but shooed them away with, "What are you two waiting for? Get off of my couch, Ryan Gosling's going to be in it!" They took that as their cue to exit side-stage, but not before Jade, who was by now safely out of view of the audience, made a face at Trina as she followed Beck to the dressing rooms. When they got to theirs, they found they weren't alone. Sitting on the couch were their managers, who were positively beaming with glee.

They realized they were still holding hands and hastily let go.

Alice, Jade's manager, was a petite, dark-haired woman in her late twenties, all grins and excitement as she wrapped her arms around her. Jade struggled, but eventually gave up. The woman was more muscle than could have humanly fit into her tiny frame. "I'm so proud of you, Jade! That went _so _well. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought you two were genuinely in love!" she said as she finally let go. "And that you didn't hate talk shows or think they were just for tourists! … Or Canadians. No offense, Beck."

He shrugged. "None taken, Alice."

Jade ignored him, instead letting out a sardonic laugh. "Yeah… no."

The truth was Beck and Jade were in a relationship for show.

Beck, a household name in entertainment for his dramatic roles and messy celebrity breakups, had just been freed from a particularly terrible relationship when he signed on to work on The Perfect Mistake. Jade was hand-picked by the director for her work in (suspiciously tragic) indie films. Imagine their surprise (_horror _was probably more like it, since they hadn't so much as spoken to each other since their unofficial breakup at graduation) when they sat down together to have the first reading of the script.

Their managers, however, seemed extraordinarily pleased to find out that there was history between them. It was juicy press or something like that, and Beck's manager Joey was only too eager to erase the horrible scandal that broke out after Beck's last girlfriend walked out on him. One way or another, they were roped into pretending they were going out, at least until the movie was released. And the rest, as they say, was history.

He ran a hand through his hair as he said, "For a moment there, I thought you were going to yell at Trina."

She scoffed. "Oh, please. I was closer to yelling at _you _for copping a feel on national television."

Alice and Joey snickered. It was no secret that they loved seeing the two fight, to quote Alice, "like an old married couple." They seemed to think that they were each other's best and most potent punishment, and really, they weren't wrong.

Beck crossed his arms over his chest, more amused than he was angry. "If I'm going to have to be in a _fake relationship _with you for another seven months, I'm going to make the most out of it," he countered, a grin on his lips as he did so.

"And that gives you the right to _molest _me?" Jade asked, her mouth agape in bewilderment.

"Jade, honey, can we just –" Alice started to say.

"Stay out of it!"

"… Okay," the woman squeaked in response.

Walking over to her, Beck laid a hand on her shoulder. "Listen, Jade. Think of it this way. We're just acting. It's just work," he said, in the calm, soothing voice he'd always used with her whenever she was in a particularly bad mood. "You don't have to like me, but when the cameras are rolling, you're going to have to play this part and you're going to have to do it _well _if anyone's going to believe us."

She pouted and reluctantly answered, "… You're right."

"Besides, you agreed to this, so the term 'molestation' is a little much, don't you think?" Beck added, unable to resist the urge to get the last word in edgewise.

Joey cleared his throat, keeping Jade from edging in another protest. "As much as we'd love to continue this, it's getting late. We're going to have to drive you both home, if you don't mind. You guys have a five a.m. call time tomorrow, don't forget."

Home. Right. Well, that was a joke. When they first broke the news to the media a month or so ago, no one was buying it – if they believed it at all, they wrote it off as one of Beck's infamous one-week-conquests. After all, to date, Jade West had not been in a relationship for years, and the public was starting to speculate as to which way she swung. So as an added _bonus _to this whole arrangement, their managers thought it would be cute and more believable to subject them to having to live together for the duration of the movie filming. Beck knew that Jade probably fought tooth and nail to keep it from happening, but they had already pitched the idea to the director, who thought it was brilliant. After all, they had to feel comfortable with each other if they were going to play the last two people on earth, right?

It was almost ironic that this often resulted in fights intense enough to bring about the apocalypse.

It was a quiet ride back to their apartment, and they said their goodbyes to Joey and Alice before they went up the elevator together. Most days they wouldn't speak a word to each other, instead just heading off to their rooms. It was like this every night, and Beck thought that if he was going to have to take any more of this, he was going to go crazy.

This particular night, though, Jade changed the routine.

"What happened to us?"

Beck blinked, as if not quite sure he had heard the question right. He turned to look at her, the expression on his face as if he was seeing her for the first time. She was still Jade, long dark hair, pale skin, piercings, full lips – but the look on her face let him know that she was serious. This wasn't her provoking a fight; this was her wanting to know. All of a sudden, it didn't feel like they were movie stars in a publicity relationship anymore. It felt like they were Beck and Jade, six years later, wondering what they had come to.

He heaved a sigh. "I don't know, Jade. After we graduated, you were busy, I was busy – we just grew apart, that's all." It was. The once-a-week get-togethers with their friends turned into once-a-month Skype sessions, and then even that turned into the odd Christmas or birthday card.

"If that's all there is, we shouldn't be like this. We shouldn't be fighting all the fucking time. I mean, we're friends, aren't we?" she asked, as if she were unsure. To be fair, he was never sure where he stood with Jade, either. They had never been "just friends", having always wavered between on and off in the spectrum of their relationship. Who was he kidding? He didn't know how to fake a relationship with Jade. He had the feeling that the moment he was pushed too far, he'd forget he was acting, and that was a really dangerous place to be in a situation like this.

"We've always been fighting," he replied quietly.

Jade was silent, as if mulling it over. Beck wondered what she was thinking about as she let them into their apartment. The atmosphere there often shifted between anger and awkwardness, but that night it was neither. Not that he could put a name to it if he tried; that was never really what he was good at. To be perfectly honest, he couldn't even give a name to what he was feeling right now. He shut and locked the door behind him and turned to say good night to Jade.

Before he could, she reached up and grabbed him by the collar, planting a quick, chaste kiss on his lips.

As she pulled away all too quickly, Beck looked at her, bewilderment in his brown eyes. What _was _that? Her blue eyes looked up at him, her expression unreadable. "That was…" he began. _Amazing. Perfect. All I needed to let me know how stupid I've been all these years. _"… Weird." Not the word he was looking for, but it was the first one he actually managed to get out.

Jade laughed at that, a note of bitterness seeping into it – or was that just his imagination? "Yeah, it was, wasn't it? _Letsneverdothatagain_," she replied too quickly, almost so that it sounded like she said it all in one breath. She took a tentative step back and then turned around. "See you tomorrow, Oliver."

Standing there watching her leave, Beck wondered what she would have said if he had chosen any other word to describe what just happened between them.

* * *

_**Author's**** Note:**_ Hey there, I'm back again after what seems like forever. I've been adjusting to work and stuff but I think I've got everything under control now. This was written a long time ago, and has been looked over by the marvelous Khay. I said I wouldn't put it up until I had more chapters finished, but I'm towards the tail end of chapter two right now and I figured I'm too impatient for that sort of thing. That said, I'm hoping you guys motivate me to update and not flake out like I usually do, haha! Hope you enjoyed reading it, it was... pretty interesting to write.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Jade, what was that last night?" _No, she'd probably say something like "what did you think it was?" and avoid the question completely.

_"You still have feelings for me, don't you?" _ He wanted to _know; _he didn't want to be slapped.

_"Can I kiss you again?" _ Now if _that _wasn't going to get him slapped, he didn't know what was.

All three questions took turns invading Beck's mind at four in the morning over coffee (black, two sugars, as always), but all three would most likely be met by less-than-stellar responses from Jade, who was probably just waking up. Beck had opted for the not-sleeping option at the last minute. They may have been living together for a little over a month, but it was only after the sudden kiss last night that he seemed to have become hyper-aware of everything that involved her. It had been _so easy _to avoid her for the past month, having had separate rooms and conflicting interests. Now, though, it was like everything reminded him of her.

He had scarcely been ten minutes in his bed when he realized, with some sense of wonderment, that had the wall not been dividing them, he could probably reach out and touch her.

It was no surprise that Beck Oliver had promptly shot out of bed and put on HBO, which was having a late-night screening of _Die Hard. _The number of cups of coffee he had consumed since _the kiss _now numbered to three. He figured he ought to stop soon if he didn't want to be jittery all throughout today's shoot (and risk getting laughed at by the co-star whose fault it was he hadn't gotten any sleep last night). He paused as he put a hand to his lips almost unconsciously, the events of last night drifting back into his mind.

Beck Oliver had kissed a lot of girls, both on- and off-screen. Most of the time, _both _on- and off-screen, it was nothing. _This, _in stark contrast, was _not _nothing. It had certainly not been a stage kiss in the strict sense of the word; in fact, since their fake relationship began, they had not even come close to kissing, even in front of the press. There had been a lot of touching, a lot of arms-around-shoulders and arms-around-waists and hands-in-hands, but that was where it ended. On the other hand, he was afraid to think of what it meant if it wasn't just for show, if it meant anything at all.

Truth be told, Beck hadn't had the best luck in relationships. Girls came and went; often, they left with the excuse that he never had time for them. That he didn't _care _about them. It wasn't that he was doing anything differently, but maybe that was the problem. He still didn't stave off other women's advances. He still didn't go out of his way to make them feel secure. And they always lingered by the door, telling him they were leaving. It was almost like they were begging him, without words, to tell them to stay. That was probably why the tabloids had branded him as a playboy, often giving his short-lived relationships the pet name "Beck Oliver's flavor of the week". It was an exaggeration at first, but he had found that it was far easier to go without the commitment and the heartache that came with it. Maybe it just wasn't for him. He honestly didn't remember the last time he really _cared _enough to hang on to them and ask them to stay with him.

That was a lie. He _did _remember, but he didn't want to admit it.

His phone rang then, and his brown eyes flickered to it. He could swear his heart stopped for a moment before he hastily pressed the decline button.

"Was that Joey?" Jade asked, suddenly appearing in the doorway of her bedroom. In the dim pre-dawn light and the lowlights from the alcove, he could see that she was ready to leave.

His mouth was dry. "Uh…" he began, punctuating that hastily with, "Yeah. Just a wakeup call. I guess I should've texted I was already up."

Her blue eyes went to the coffee pot, already half-empty at this hour. "How long have you been up?" she asked. She still didn't miss a thing, did she?

"Not long," he assured her brusquely, "Help yourself to coffee, we're leaving in a few minutes." He picked up his mug and put it in the dishwasher, careful not to meet Jade's eye. He was afraid that his tongue would get the better of him and he would blurt out one of the three questions that had been spinning around in his head since the night before. Since there seemed to be only a 33% chance he _wasn't _going to be slapped if he _did _ask one of them, he decided it would be better not to take any chances.

It didn't help that when he turned around, he found himself mere inches away from Jade, who was just picking up a mug from the shelf. She seemed just as surprised as he was by their proximity, the alarm apparent in her blue eyes. For a moment, there was a flicker of something in him – hope? Lust? – he had no idea what it was, but something made him close his eyes and lean in.

The next thing he knew was the sharp pain across his face.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Jade's lips drawn in a stern expression. Her knuckles were white from gripping the mug too tightly, and she noticed this, because she set it down on the counter, the numbers one to ten silent on her lips as she took a step back. When she was done, she shook her head and told him, as calmly as she could manage, "Beck, I know you didn't get any sleep last night, but _please, _save your acting for the cameras." She turned away from him then, adding, "I'll drive myself to work."

As he watched her walk away, Beck just _knew _that he shouldn't have taken those 1-in-3 odds. He took a risky gamble and just lost everything.

Jade was hardly in her car when she pulled out her PearPhone and dialed Alice's number with shaky hands. It almost slipped in her grasp, at which she mumbled a "shit" under her breath, but she managed to get her manager on the line. She sounded a little concerned, probably with good reason. After all, Jade only ever called her – or _anyone, _really – when it was necessary. "Jade? What's wrong?" came the woman's voice from the other line.

"Alice, I can't do this anymore. Let me move out. _Please," _she pleaded.

Jade West _never _pleaded.

"Honey, are you okay? Did something happen?" Alice asked, the worry now even more evident in her voice. "Did Beck do something?"

Jade debated telling her the truth. How juvenile would it be to have a fit over a _kiss? _Surely she was mature enough to know that most kisses meant little. She knew that it wasn't _this _particular kiss that she was frustrated about, though; it was the one last night, the one that kept her – and apparently, Beck as well – from getting any sleep. Why had she done that? She knew it would be too cliché to go with "It seemed like a good idea at the time," but that was just the excuse she had to give. She tried to shake those thoughts out of her head, but instead they came out of her mouth. "Alice, I kissed him." She regretted the words almost as soon as they came out of her mouth.

The line was silent for a while. She could imagine Alice dropping her phone in shock and scrambling to pick it back up. "Jade… why? What happened? Oh my god. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are we happy about this?" the woman asked, all too quickly.

"No!" she replied on instinct. She faltered then. That _was _the right answer, wasn't it? "I'm… I'll call you later, I'm on my way to work. See you." Before Alice could get another word in edgewise, she dropped the call and tossed her PearPhone onto the seat next to her. Her grip on the steering wheel tightened. The anger bubbled up inside her and she knew she was only half angry with Beck. If she had to be honest, she knew that she wasn't angry that he leaned in to kiss her. In fact, she _wanted _it. She was standing a little too close on purpose, brushing against him just a little because she was _curious. _

She wanted to know if he wanted this just as badly.

And that destroyed her in ways she couldn't even begin to explain.

Years ago, when they all graduated and went their separate ways, Jade was sick of it: sick of not seeing him, sick of his missing even their once-weekly Skype calls, sick of the fact that she only ever saw him on magazine covers or on television. He was slipping away from her (from _them, _she always used to say, but as long as she was being honest with herself she didn't care about not wanting to sound needy). She didn't want to think of Beck Oliver as larger than life, because she knew that the moment she started thinking that, thinking of anything else was going to be impossible.

Figuring herself out after their goodbye became unofficially final was the first thing on the agenda. She threw herself into studying and into auditioning and writing. She didn't want to be _that girl Beck Oliver dated back in high school. _She wanted to be her own person and she wanted to be that without him.

Up until now she had been doing an amazing job.

When she found out her co-star for her big movie break was _him, _the first words she spoke to Alice were, "I feel like I'm selling myself out." Alice, who, at the time, knew nothing about their history, thought she meant that people would be watching this movie not for its artistic and dramatic merit but for _that hot guy Beck Oliver. _Jade let her think that. She didn't want to correct her to say that she didn't think she was ready to hold her own against him, much less be able to act like she was in love with him onscreen and like she hated his guts off of it.

Don't even get her started on how the fake relationship made her feel.

Picking her phone up again, she dialled Cat's number. The girl was working Fashion Week in Paris, where it was probably a much better time of day. The phone rang twice before the redhead picked it up. "This is Cat!" her voice came from the other line.

"Cat, I don't know if I can do the movie anymore," Jade blurted out. That wasn't true. She'd been working so hard to get a part worthy of note, produced by big-name companies that could finally get her out there like she knew she deserved. She didn't want to throw it away. She just didn't want to throw her pride away, either, and that's what developing feelings for her co-star would inevitably spell out. Never mind that the public thought that already; what was important was what _she _thought, and the knowledge that she was wavering was tearing her apart in the worst ways imaginable.

There had been silence on the other line, odd since it was Cat she was speaking to, but the girl's bubbly voice came back up again, a bit of a questioning note in her tone. "Why, are they serving tuna fish at lunch on set every day? I know you hate it," it was an innocent question, not loaded like she might have expected from someone like Vega or Andre, but Jade could tell that Cat was not as oblivious as she was letting on.

She laughed, and Cat laughed along with her, albeit nervously, like she wasn't sure they were supposed to be laughing. In hindsight, Jade supposed there was both very little and very _much _that was laughable about her situation. It was all a matter of perspective. "Cat…" she started once the short-lived round of laughter was over, "I kissed Beck last night."

There was a sound of a short scuffle, an indistinct "OW!" from a voice that was not Cat's, and a hurried mess of apologies from a voice that _was _Cat's. "I'm so, so sorry! Jade, hold on a sec, I just poked my model with a needle," she said, flustered, leaving Jade to drive on in an uncomfortably awkward silence as she waited for the girl to come back. "Sorry, I'm here. You kissed him? Why? Do you like him again?"

"It's not that simple, Cat," Jade replied exasperatedly.

"It isn't?" Cat asked innocently, and Jade was surprised by the challenge that the question posed. Her friend made her excuses that the show was about to start and that she really had to go, but that she'd call later, but her words remained so firmly in Jade's mind it was like she hadn't hung up at all. Was it really that simple? Above the _curiosity _as to whether his feelings were still there, was it really just that _hers _were? She scarcely dared to think it, but now that Cat had brought it up, she couldn't think of anything else.

And yet, last night… no matter how chaste the kiss was, no matter how much she told herself that her motives therein were based on curiosity and nothing more, she couldn't deny that the reason she left in a huff that morning was not because it was all _innocent. _There was definitely something there that she couldn't put a name to, although if she absolutely _had _to put a label to it, she would sooner give in to calling it lust than she ever would call it love. Not that, not again, and certainly not so soon.

But it wouldn't be _her _loss, would it, if she just played along?

As she pulled up into her parking space at the studio, she cursed to herself silently. Had she really spent that much time thinking about Beck? Screw this. It certainly wasn't what she needed. It wasn't what either of them needed, if the familiar dialogue of Die Hard coming from the living room at two o'clock in the morning was any indication. She picked up her phone and stuffed it into her pocket before she got out of the car. She slammed the door shut a little harder than was necessary and locked it behind her. Her mind was set, now: she knew what she was going to do.

She was going to do whatever the hell she wanted, damn the consequences.

Beck arrived on set half an hour later than she had, although he was by no means late. He wanted to get there just on time so that he didn't have to spend a painful half hour with Jade glaring at him from across the room. Guilt ate away at him, partly because leaning in to kiss her was probably wrong, but even more so because he wasn't half as guilty about it as he should have been. He could only imagine how difficult she was going to make things for him later on in the day, when they had to drive home together. Or not, seeing as she took her car. Maybe they'd go back to the way they were before yesterday, before that goddamned kiss that threw everything for a loop. To be honest, he wasn't sure if that was something to be relieved or thankful for, now that he was forced to remember all that he was missing.

He wasn't sure what he was doing when he caught sight of Alice speaking to one of the tech people while he was on his way to his dressing room. All he knew, then, was that he had to talk to Jade _now, _no matter how sure he was that he didn't know what to say to her. The woman shot him a knowing, almost pitying glance and Beck was certain that she knew. However, that was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment. He didn't care _who _knew, just that he needed to see her. He didn't know… to apologize for being forward? (Hadn't _she _been the forward one, sending him mixed signals since last night?) Maybe to make it up to her? (Assuming she even wanted to see him, that is?)

Now wasn't the time to be planning his speech, and it wasn't like he was any good at that sort of thing, anyway.

"I need to talk to Jade," he told Alice bluntly, feeling no need and certainly no motivation to go through the usual pleasantries.

"I'm not quite sure she wants to talk to _you _at the moment," she responded apologetically, albeit assuming a tone of formal politeness, "Sorry, Mr. Oliver."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, it… it wasn't a question," he said in reply as he walked past her, leaving the woman stunned as she stood watching his retreating form for a moment. Then, as if her sense was a little late catching up to her, she remembered it would be _her _neck on the line if Jade's dressing room was intruded by the one person she did not want to see.

"Mr. Oliver, please wait!" she called out as she ran after him as best she could in her high-heeled pumps. But he was already too far ahead of her, and by the time she caught up with him, he was already opening the door to Jade's dressing room.

Oh, she was in for it now.

* * *

_**Author's Note:**_Uploading a couple days earlier than I thought I would because I'm going to be away this weekend. Unedited so feel free to point out any errors and I'll gladly fix them! As I've already told Khay, this was not where I expected things to go. I have a feeling the next chapter might up the rating to M. If that's the case, how many of you would still read it?


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